Getting Sad Thinking About It!

As time to leave MO gets closer, the tears flow easier and easier. Chad is staying here for now. He’s looking for a full time job and chances are slim he’ll find anything in our area but he’s working here for now and will stay here when we leave. Of course, he’s excited about being on his own, though money will be real tight . . and if he can’t make it and it takes forever to find a real job, he can always come to Texas.

Last night at dinner I was asking him if he’s going to come see me and he said “If you send me the money!” I told him that was fine. Birthday and Christmas money will stay with me til he comes to see me and if one year passes that I haven’t seen him, that money goes back into my account! 🙂

Later last night, I was cleaning out pictures on my memory sticks and began looking at recent pictures on my backup hard drive.

This was when he had received a nice little check from a drawing at school.

He was all dressed up here to go campaigning with his friend who was running for coroner. Would you vote for someone whose friend was dressed like this? 🙂

Holding Speck!

Mom and Chad with a quilt she made him.

When he was in his friend’s wedding two years ago.

Oh, I’m going to miss my boy but I know other moms have survived and so will I but I’m going to put this hard drive with the photos somewhere so I don’t accidentally come across when I’m feeling kinda sad . . that would probably send me driving to MO to see him way too often.

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Now that my two girls are married with children and great jobs, I look back on the days you are now experiencing as some of our best. You’ve worked all your life to watch this young man grow up and become the person he is today. I call them the “sorting out” years. It takes time and you can now only watch, but all your good times and common sense when you were raising him has paid off in spades. He’ll find his way even if it takes awhile. Just enjoy it even if you shudder at times.

Judy I have two girls who are now 35 and 30 and as a single parent I have had a time raising the two of them. There were frustrating times when I just wanted to strangle them and good times when things were great. My youngest moved to California and I miss her a lot but I live in the same town as my oldest and am happy to see her. They have both grown into excellent people and I am very proud of them. I know you are proud of Chad too and I know how hard it is when they leave home but the relationship only seems to get better as they age kind of like fine wine, good but if you leave it alone for a while it gets better.

Judy, I have 2 sons. When the first left home, I was ok because I still had his brother at home. But when he left, I felt like a lost puppy. I wandered around the house for quite a while feeling terrible! And the kid only moved about 5 miles away! Of course I couldn’t show DH how teary eyed I was, didn’t want him to think I was a big baby. ;o) As moms we know what we have to do in order to make our children productive and responsible adults. But it doesn’t mean we have to like it. Prayers that both yours and Chad’s transitions are smooth ones.

I know just where you are at. When we moved last year I left both children behind. One has now moved back in with us–and will shortly be moving away again. I am happy though that she doesn’t feel like we sold her home. She said that home is wherever dad & mom are.

it takes awhile to get accustomed to an empty nest, believe me you will get used to it after awhile – never quite the same though – but change is good right? I so wish my youngest daughter lived closer – a two day drive or a day of flying kind of takes it out of you, but we still maintain a close relationship. Sometimes I think we are closer than the daughter who only lives an hour away. Good luck to Chad being on his own – it will take him awhile to sort things out and get used to being on a budget and all but he will figure it out.
Karenhttp://karensquilting.com/blog/

Judy, you have a handsome son and he will do fine because you raised him right. Sometimes they make choices we wouldn’t choose but that is how they learn. You will learn to love the empty nest and it will be a special time for you and Vince. It isn’t that far for Chad to visit and I know he will always make time for his Mom. Isn’t that how we raised them? Let him fly and enjoy your new freedom. Good luck in Texas, Judy.

sometimes the fact that the job is full time is more important than what the job is or where it is. this is the time when Chad will really find out what it is like to be on his own and have to solve his own problems instead of always having mom handy to pick up the pieces.
don’t worry, as long as there’s a phone handy where he can reach you for advice, he won’t fall flat on his face very often, if at all.
i remember that time very well–i had to call home to find out how long and at what temp to bake a potato, LOL. i’m sure my mom rolled her eyes, but i did manage to have a baked potato for dinner. i felt so accomplished!
and then there was the time when my mountain of laundry stacked up in the corner and i realized that i was the one who was gonna have to wash and dry and fold all of that if i wanted the clean clothes that always seemed to magically appear when i lived at home.
there were lots of times like that when i was away from home and really on my own, when i was learning that living on my own really entailed a lot of self-dependence. most of the time i went thru those times of falling and picking myself up by myself, and never did let my parents know–they would have been soo worried! But obviously i survived, and i made it thru, (sometimes just barely!) But the lessons i learned during those times of making it thru built my self confidence, my ability to cope, learning how to make good decisions, like nothing else that my parents could have done for me.
knowing that i had survived gave me courage to keep on in the face of difficulty, overcomming even more difficult things over the years.
In looking back, I can see that in the beginning when i was first on my own, those problems were small things indeed. but they all served to instill a confidence in me to tackle harder things as they came along.
and today i can move mountains.

These times of TRANSITION are challenging for sure. Since Chad is an ONLY you are having your EMPTY NEST all rolled up into ONE EVENT. I predict that there may be a bit of YO YOin going on. Chad may be back….and more than once. Sometimes these MOVING ON decisions are not FINAL!

Most of the time there is an even BETTER relationship when the children come back to the “nest.”

Lots of folks are “FEELING” your pain right now……and it is OK to cry. We should always allow ourselves to feel sad when we are mourning a loss. This is a loss of the relationship as you know it now.

Comfort yourself with the thought that there will be even better times ahead as you watch Chad grow, mature, marry, and give you little grandangels to adore and enjoy. Once you see a “little Chad” or “little Chadette” you will be OVERJOYED.

(This gives us a new appreciation of what our own parents experienced when we left home, doesn’t it!)

Hang in there and maybe you should go get that puppy NOW! Your excuse to Vince – you were OVERWHELMED WITH SADNESS and YOU HAVE NO MEMORY OF WHAT CAME OVER YOU AND ……you can probably fill in the blank with some other cool things….:)

No matter how far you are away from him and the familiar surrroundings, You are still Chad’s Mother and always will be. Motherhood doesn’t stop because they move or you move. Mine moved away and still lives 45 minutes away, but I get the phone calls late at night to ask a silly question. This new chapter in your lives will be a rocky road, but it will work out in the end. Chris

I remember reminding myself that I raised them to be adults. That didn’t stop me from crying my eyes out for a WEEK when our 1st went off to college. I knew that she would only be home for vacations, and even THAT during those 4 yrs would be 2 weeks at best. I want you to send this back to me in 3 years when my youngest goes off to college! I will need a refresher! Hugs!

Leaving is hard–leaving or having children leave is even harder. One of our daughters just left three weeks ago for a job in Africa for a year. I miss her dreadfully. She had been living at home for a year since finishing university and boy is it quiet around here now.

Our youngest still comes home from university in the summer and that is another story. We just get used to not having her at home and then here she is again and we adjust and just get used to that and then she leaves! 🙂

I remember when we moved–same scenario– he wasmine by a different marriage and he was an only child He knew the people that bought our house and he just didn’t leave his basement bedroom when they moved in!!! It is hard to leave them behind but I am proof that you can survive it. It is fine to cry… I feel it lets them know how much we love them. Keep your head high!

You’ve had some happy times in MO so it stands to reason you would be emotional about leaving, yet excited about getting settled in TX.

When kids leave home it’s always an adjustment. And, it will probably be a while before he gets a job he can comfortably live on so don’t be surprised if you get some calls asking for help. He most likely will have to get a place with a roommate or two to make it affordable. It’s all an adjustment for him too. Both my kids were pretty self sufficient but it still took a few years for them to get it all together.

There are advantages to the empty nest too…the grocery bill is lower, the car insurance bill is lower (and so is the gas bill), my quilting machine now resides in daughter’s old room and son’s old room provides some organized storage space for all manner of things.

Perhaps we can join forces and buy shares in Kleenex tissues to Judy- our only son Kevin who is about Chad’s age (23) is moving to Charlottetown , PEIwhich is about 4000 miles from where we live in Alberta. His girlfriend is from the east coast and wants to return to the east coast so he is off to try living there. We know that he is grown and we want him to be happy but I am finding it difficult already. He goes on August 3. I know that we have technology and all that but it has hard to think of him living an 8 hour plane ride away… It is very expensive to fly across Canada so it will be awhile before we cross paths again. I am trying to get my big girl pants on and working on getting my head adjusted to the new reality of our lives. We will miss him greatly as I know you will miss Chad. Hang in there – I am hoping that quilting will be a good distraction.
Regards,
Anna

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